Darwin's Radio

by Greg Bear

Series:

Darwin #1

Publisher:

Ballantine

Copyright:

September 1999

Printing:

July 2000

ISBN:

0-345-43524-9

Format:

Mass market

Pages:

538

An anthropologist with a history of ignoring rules to get at what he
thinks will be a scientific discovery, in the company of a couple of
sketchy opportunists, discovers two Neanderthal bodies high in the Alps.
With them is a child who looks human. An expert virologist is called to
investigate a mass grave in the Republic of Georgia and discovers that
they're recent, not dating from past wars. Most of the killed women were
pregnant. And a retrovirus long kept in inactive portions of the human
genome has somehow become an active retrovirus again, and is causing fetus
malformation and miscarriage in pregnant women.

Darwin's Radio is a biological thriller, following the
investigation of a disease that may not be a disease and the political and
mass reaction to an infection that causes pregnancy and miscarriage. It's
put together in the classic thriller mode, starting with a slow build as
the problem takes shape and we meet the people involved and then slowly
raising the stakes and adding complications as mysteries are solved and
politics become more complex. Bear thankfully sticks to only a few
viewpoint characters: the scientists who figure out what's truly
happening, and some of the government officials who are trying to keep
popular reaction under control and deal with the threat that the SHEVA
virus makes to the structure of human society. Most of the action is
political, but the story basis is near-future semi-plausible science
fiction and the ending is pure SF.

One of the things I found remarkable about this book was the degree to
which Bear took on the typical subject matter of a Michael Crichton novel
and wrote a novel that's Crichton's polar opposite. There's the same
near-future scientific development, similar tension, and the same mix of
science and human peril, but where Crichton writes anti-science horror
Bear writes science fiction. Crichton treats science as an artificial
invention of man unleashing nightmares on the world that have to then be
controlled, buried, and forgotten. Bear shows nature as strange and
adaptable, humans looking to science to protect them from nature, and
scientists trying to use science to understand what's truly happening and
accept new knowledge. Crichton's novels are about forbidden and dangerous
knowledge, Lovecraftian in their portrayal of science as insanity that
humans must step back from. Bear turns this on its head and shows people
trying to understand and cope with staggering change. To anyone who
doesn't understand why Crichton's novels are essentially
anti-science-fiction, I recommend reading this book immediately afterwards
and studying the contrast.

While the handling of science and research is excellent (down to the
politics and the way choices are made between multiple possible
interpretations), Bear stumbles a bit more on the human angle. I liked
the political infighting about what to do about SHEVA once public panic
started, but the portrayal of public panic itself left a lot to be
desired. The panic makes sense. The virus messes with human
reproduction, naturally a hot button. But Bear never shows any of the
thought behind the protesting groups, never shows their preparation or
literature, and keeps his viewpoint characters entirely in the dark about
how people are organizing. As a result, the protests, riots, and reaction
feels strange, uncontrolled, wild, and more dangerous than the disease.
(It doesn't help that much of it is off-camera.)

This comparison and contrast between the mysterious virus and the
mysterious mob reaction serves some thematic purpose in the book, but felt
artificial. It's an effect constructed by keeping the reader ignorant of
things that would have been easily found, such as public statements of
rabble-rousers or organizing speeches of protest groups. Instead,
protesters are almost always eerily silent and eerily well-organized. The
rest of humanity is even more incomprehensible to the viewpoint characters
than the virus is. Given how central the human reaction it is, I wanted
Bear to set it up better. He already brought abortion into the story in a
very realistic and nicely handled complication, and more portrayal of the
other side (a viewpoint character among the protesters, for instance)
would have tied it all together. (Although, given the politics involved,
I found it odd that Mexico and Central and South America disappeared from
the political landscape. The US is not where I think the opposite polar
extreme from Asia in handling of SHEVA-created pregnancies would form.)

The best part of this book is the last 200 pages. Like many thrillers
I've read, it has a slow start, and near the middle Bear throws in a love
triangle to further complicate life that I found unnecessary and bolted
on. I think there was enough suspense and character conflict without
unnecessarily falling back on some romantic stereotypes. Bear could have
trimmed the start of the book and the romance angle to provide space for
another viewpoint on public reaction to the virus. I'm also not sure what
to think of the choice of infecting one of the viewpoint scientists rather
than using a separate character to follow the action of the virus from the
inside. It provides some opportunities to contrast human reactions with
scientific reactions, and Bear handles this well, but Kaye ends up
remarkably central to everything that's happening in every possible way.
At times that felt odd, even though it's defensible given the nature of
the virus.

The ending was a bit sappy and roughly what I'd been expecting, but I was
surprised by how much I liked it and how much Bear still embedded
plausible biological projections in it. It's more of a sequel setup than
a pure ending, but it was still satisfying.

Bear's scientific subject matter isn't entirely to my taste, but I enjoyed
his portrayal of the political fight and the way science is limited and
twisted by the strictures of political need, public opinion, and public
acceptance. The book is not without its flaws, but cautiously recommended
if the mix of science fiction and thriller sounds interesting.